Tunneling Field Effect Transistors

Rahim Esfandyarpour
June 12, 2012

Fig. 1: Top: Schematic of a tunnel transistor (TFET)
architecture; Bottom: Energy band diagram illustrating the
TFET ON and OFF state conditions.

Quantum Tunneling

The Schrödinger formulation of quantum mechanics
presents an interesting phenomenon where a particle tunnels through an
energy barrier, similar to evanescent wave coupling of electromagnetic
waves. One interpretation of this duality involves the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle, which defines a limit on how precisely the
position and the momentum of a particle can be known at the same time.
This implies that there are no solutions with a probability of exactly
zero (or one). Hence, the probability of a given particle's existence on
the opposite side of an intervening barrier is non-zero, and such
particles will appear - with no indication of physically transiting the
barrier - on the 'other' side with a frequency proportional to this
probability.

Band-to-Band Tunneling

In TFETs tunneling of interest is band-to-band
tunneling. For band-to-band tunneling to occur, an electron in the
valence band of semiconductor tunnels across the band gap to the
conduction band without the assistance of traps. The band gap acts as
the potential barrier that the particle tunnels across. An electron
travels from the valance band to the conduction band without the
absorption or emission of photon in direct tunneling. A tunneling
particle acquires a change in momentum by absorbing or emitting a phonon
in the indirect tunneling process. In indirect semiconductors whose
gamma-centered direct band gap EΓ, is much greater than
their indirect band gap, EG indirect tunneling is the main
tunneling process. The direct tunneling process is negligible in
indirect band gap materials like silicon because the transmission
probability decreases rapidly with increasing barrier height. The
electron tunneling through the band gap is akin to particle tunneling
through a potential barrier, and the most probable tunneling path the
smallest barrier. For direct tunneling, the requirement for conservation
of perpendicular momentum causes an increase in the tunneling. A
particle with some perpendicular momentum in the valence band must
tunnel to state with the same perpendicular momentum in the conduction
band, which results in a longer tunneling path. In the indirect
tunneling process, the phonon does impart or absorb a change in the
momentum of the particle. Therefore, the electron, phonon interaction of
the indirect tunneling process decouples the perpendicular momentum of
valence band and conduction band. An electron in the valence band can
tunnel to any state in the conduction band such that energy and
perpendicular momentum are conserved:

(1)

Where β is the wave vector of the phonon. Under
the continuum approximation, β can be any value so that
kc⊥ is independent of kv⊥. However, the
energy imparted for a momentum transfer from Γ-valley maximum to
the X-valley minimum by a transverse acoustic phonon is approximately 18
meV. [1] Because this energy is quite small, the approximation is made
that no change in total energy occurs with the phonon interaction, and
the term ℏωβ is neglected. In field effect
transistors, tunnelling occurs with barriers of thickness around 1-3 nm
and smaller in which the gate is controlled via quantum tunnelling
rather than by thermal injection, reducing gate voltage from ∼1 volt
to 0.2 volts and reducing power consumption by up to 100x. If these
transistors can be scaled up into VLSI chips, they will significantly
improve the performance per power of integrated circuits.

Tunneling FET transistors

The tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) belongs to
the family of so-called steep-slope devices that are currently being
investigated for ultra-low-power electronic applications. [2] A key
feature of the TFET, which is critical for low-power switching, is the
possibility for an inverse sub threshold slope, S, below the limit of 60
mV/dec for normal FETs. [3]

TFET is simply a gated p-i-n diode, which is
operating under reverse bias condition. In a MOSFET the source of
carrier injection mechanism is thermal injection but a TFET utilizes
band-to-band tunneling as a source carrier injection mechanism. Fig. 1
shows the band diagrams of the n-channel TFET in the OFF and ON states.
In the OFF state, there is a wide potential barrier between the source
and the channel, as a result no tunneling is occurring. Only a very
small leakage current exists. But when the gate voltage exceeds the
threshold voltage, the potential barrier between the channel and the
source becomes narrow enough to allow a significant tunneling current,
which is called ON state. Because of the different source carrier
injection mechanism in the TFET compare to a MOSFET, it can achieve
sub-60-mV/dec S (where S is the sub threshold slope) [3]. Wang et al.
[5] showed the feasibility of the TFET for low-power applications; some
interesting studies have been reported. Zhang et al. [6] provided a
theoretical analysis that the S value of TFETs can be reduced below 60
mV/dec.

TFET is an ambipolar device, it will show p-type
behavior with dominant hole conduction and n-type behavior with dominant
electron conduction. But this ambipolarity can be suppressed by
designing an asymmetry in the doping level or profile, or by restricting
the movement of one type of charge carrier using Heterostructures. In
principle, because of the asymmetry TFETs can achieve much higher
ION-IOFF ratio over a given gate voltage swing
compared to the MOSFETs, making the TFET architecture an attractive
vehicle to implement low supply voltage (VDD) digital logic
circuits. When a TFET is in its off state (Fig. 1 left), the valence
band edge of the channel is located below the conduction band edge of
the source, so BTBT is suppressed, leading to very small TFET off-state
currents that are dictated by the reverse-biased p-i-n diode. Applying a
negative gate voltage pulls the energy bands up.

A conductive channel opens as soon as the channel
valence band has been lifted above the source conduction band because
carriers can now tunnel into empty states of the channel. Because only
carriers in the energy window ΔΦ can tunnel into the channel,
the energy distribution of carriers from the source is limited; the
high-energy part of the source Fermi distribution is effectively cut
off, as shown in Fig. 2 (left). Thus the electronic system is
effectively 'cooled down', acting as a conventional MOSFET at a lower
temperature. This filtering function is the reason why we are able to
achieve an S of below 60mV per decade (Fig. 2 right). However, the
channel valence band can be lifted by a small change in gate voltage,
and the tunneling width can effectively be reduced by the gate voltage.
S in a TFET is not constant, As a consequence of the BTBT mechanism, but
it depends on the applied gate-source bias, as indicated in Fig. 2
(right), increasing with the gate-to-source bias. In a TFET S remains
below 60 mV per decade over several orders of magnitude of drain current
and that's why you have a better voltage scaling of a TFET than a
MOSFET. One challenge in TFETs is to realize high on currents because
ION critically depends on the transmission probability,
TWKB, of the inter band tunnelling barrier. This barrier can
be approximated by a triangular potential, as indicated by the grey
shading in Fig. 2 (left), so T can be calculated using the
Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation:

(3)

Where m* is the effective mass and
Eg is the bandgap. Here, λ is the screening tunnelling
length and describes the spatial extent of the transition region at the
source-channel interface; it depends on the specific device geometry. In
a TFET, at constant drain voltage, VD, the VG
increase reduces λ and increases the energetic difference between
the conduction band in the source and the valence band in the channel
(ΔΦ), so that in a first approximation the drain current is a
super exponential function of VG. As a result, in contrast to
the MOSFET, the point subthreshold swing of the TFET is no longer a
constant but strongly depends on VG. The smallest subthermal
values occur at the lowest gate voltages. A high on current requires a
high transparency of the tunnelling barrier, thus maximizing TWKB, which
in the best case should be unity. Eqn. (3) suggests optimized design
approaches to boost the on current. WKB approximation works properly in
direct bandgap semiconductors, such as InAs, but has limited accuracy
for Si and Ge structures or when quantum effects and phonon assisted
tunnelling become dominant.

Fig. 2: Left: Schematic energy band profile for the
off state (dashed blue lines) and the on state (red lines)
in a p-type TFET. In the on state electrons in the energy
window, ΔΦ (green shading), can tunnel from the
source conduction band into the channel valence band.
Electrons in the tail of the Fermi distribution cannot
tunnel because no empty states are available in the channel
at their energy (dotted black line), so a slope of less than
60 mV decade can be achieved. [7]

Optimization of Tunneling FETs

The goals for TFET optimization are to simultaneously
achieve the highest possible ION, the lowest Savg
over many orders of magnitude of drain current, and the lowest possible
IOFF. To outperform CMOS transistors, the target parameters
for TFETs are: ION in the range of hundreds of milliamperes;
Savg far below 60 mV per decade for five decades of current;
ION/IOFF > 105; and VDD <
0.5 V. Because S decreases with the VG, TFETs are naturally
optimized for low-voltage operation. To realize a high tunnelling
current and a steep slope, the transmission probability of the source
tunnelling barrier should become close to unity for a small change in
VG. The WKB approximation suggests that the bandgap
(Eg), the effective carrier mass (m*) and the
screening tunnelling length (λ) should be minimized for high
barrier transparency. Whereas Eg and m* depend
solely on the material system, λ is strongly influenced by
several parameters, such as the device geometry, dimensions, doping
profiles and gate capacitance. A small λ results in a strong
modulation of the channel bands by the gate. This requires a
high-permittivity (high K) gate dielectric with as low an equivalent
oxide thickness as possible. Furthermore, the body thickness of the
channel should be minimized, showing in the best case one-dimensional
electronic transport behavior. The abruptness of the doping profile at
the tunnel junction is also important. To minimize the tunnelling
barrier, the high source doping level must fall off to the intrinsic
channel in as short a width as possible. This requires a change in the
doping concentration of about 4-5 orders of magnitude within a distance
of only a few nanometres. Increasing the source doping reduces λ
and may lead to a slightly smaller energy barrier at the tunnel junction
because of bandgap narrowing. However, the energy filtering effect
described above becomes effective only if the Fermi energy in the source
is not too large. [7]

Double Gate Tunneling FETs

In an integrated DG-CMOS/DG-Tunnel-FET process, the
Tunnel FETs will benefit from the added gate, such that the current will
be at least doubled. In this way, the ON-current is boosted, while the
OFF-current, still in the femtoamperes or picoamperes range, increases
by the same factor but remains extremely low. It is worth noting that,
for ultrathin siliconon-insulator (SOI) MOSFETs, some reports suggest
that this improvement can be even higher when volume inversion takes
place. [8]

Temperature Dependence of Tunneling FETs

The temperature and voltage dependence of the GIDL
effect in MOSFETs under low electric field is investigated. The
dependency of the GIDL current on the electric field E can be expressed
as

(4)

The parameter are given by A ∝
EG-7/4 and B ∝ EG3/2,
with the band-gap energy EG. From Eqn. (4) the GIDL current is derived
to be very weak dependent on the temperature. However a second effect
exists at low electric field. Under low electric field the GIDL current
can be described by the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) model, which has strong
temperature dependence. Under higher electric field the GIDL current is
dominated by Band-to-Band tunneling which has weak temperature
dependence. Due to the comparable physical principle of the GIDL current
and the TFET, Eqn. (4) can be used to separate the SRH part of the TFET
characteristic from the Band-to-Band tunneling part. Hence, starting
from a gate-to-source voltage of approximately -1V the Band-to-Band
tunneling is the dominant mechanism. Like for the MOSFET the temperature
dependency is changing with the voltage applied. For the MOSFET the zero
temperature coefficient point can be used for digital circuit design to
make the system performance independent of the temperature. For the TFET
the voltage where the change of the temperature dependence occurs is
outside the useable range. Hence, the combination of the MOSFET and the
TFET can be used to compensate for temperature effects. For analog
circuits the temperature dependence has to be verified in more detail.
Obviously, the temperature effect of the TFET is more comparable to the
bipolar device. This may allow novel topologies for a "band-gap"-like
voltage reference circuit. [9]

High-k gate dielectric Tunneling FETs

An improved on-current and decreased subthreshold
swing can be obtained by the careful choice of a gate dielectric. Kathy
Boucart Et al. compared 3 nm physical thickness of
Si3N4 and two high-k dielectrics with dielectric
constants of 21 and 29 with SiO2. In addition to improved
Ion, both the point and average subthreshold swing improve as the result
of the better gate coupling given by a high-k dielectric. The off
current is less than 1 fA for all materials. The on-current of a Tunnel
FET does not increase merely proportionally to the increase in the gate
capacitance, as it would for a conventional MOSFET. Their numerical
simulation shows the Tunnel FETs subthreshold swing continues to improve
as the gate dielectric permittivity increases. The swing for the
conventional MOSFET hits its 60 mV/decade limit at room temperature and
cannot improve further. While high-k dielectrics have advantages for
device characteristics, when put directly in contact with a silicon
channel, they can lead to defects at the semiconductor/dielectric
interface. Although Tunnel FETs might be less sensitive to changes in
channel mobility than MOSFETs since the transport through the tunnel
junction dominates over any scattering in the channel, standard CMOS
fabrication techniques require an interfacial layer between the high-k
dielectric and the silicon channel. High-k dielectrics bring additional
challenges such as the limitations of soft and hard dielectric
breakdown. Depending on the characteristics of fabricated high-k
dielectric layers, it may be necessary to limit applied gate voltages.
[10]

Conclusion

Today TFETs represent the most promising steep-slope
switch candidate, having the potential to use a supply voltage
significantly below 0.5 V and thereby offering significant power
dissipation savings. Because of their low off currents, they are ideally
suited for low-power and low-standby-power logic applications operating
at moderate frequencies. Other promising
applications of TFETs include ultralow-power specialized analog
integrated circuits with improved temperature stability and low-power
SRAM.

The biggest challenge is to achieve high performance
(high ION) without degrading IOFF, combined with
an S of less than 60 mV per decade over more than four decades of drain
current. This requires the additive combination of the many technology
boosters which are available or under research.